Not 31? A change in the behavior of the main pop-up menus

[bekateen]

Hi Jools,

Just in the last two days, I've observed a change in the behavior of the master pop-up menus across the top of the page:

Shane's World, Forum, Books, Cool, Search and Help! all have menus that pop up, with their uppermost edge flush with the bottom of the menu tabs; with this behavior, you can move your cursor left to right over the tabs with the effect that the pop-up menus don't obscure the neighboring tabs, and the source tab is still visible such that the user can click directly on the tab and go straight to the home screen for that tab (see photo).

This same behavior, which I think is wonderful, was also true for the CotM and the Cat-eLog tabs a couple of days ago. But as of today, when I move my cursor over these tabs, their pop-up menus move up, flush with the top edge of the browser window (see photo). The result is that (a) this obscures the neighboring tabs (if you are trying to navigate to them) and (b) you can't click directly on menu tab to get to the main CotM or Cat-eLog page.

Actually, this is not a totally novel behavior. I have observed this behavior before (even before the 3.1 change-over) on my mobile device and on my desktop computer if I had the browser window set to any size less than "full screen." Now this behavior occurs on my desktop computer even when the browser window is set to full screen.

It is inconvenient and it is annoying, so if it can be fixed, that would be great. But to be fair, it is a minor behavioral quirk, so if it's something better left alone, then let it be so.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Okay, maybe it's not a bug. It occurs when I use Firefox 34 and IE 10, but it doesn't occur when I use Google Chrome. It's just a browser-specific behavior. Never mind.

Eric

[Jools]

I think it's one to leave here and have a look at when I can. It may be these dropdown menus are not going to be around for long and I will use the dropdown menus that come with the forum software rather than (yet) another third party vendor.

Cheers,

Jools

[bekateen]

Thanks for looking at it Jools.

One thing I noticed that both the CotM and the Cat-eLog tabs have in common is that they have more than one column of entries to display; all the other tabs have only one column. Perhaps that factors into this.

Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

This was fixed a while back, just housekeeping!

Cheers,



Jools

[TwoTankAmin]

I think it is all browser/device related. I use a little known niche browser which is more protective of privacy than the big boys. It replaced Firefox in 2014 when it went to the Australis UI. I adopted FF when I left IE after 6.0. I would rather throw out my computer than use Chrome. I feel the same way about windows 10.

Even on the Mac I got last year I use an Apple version of the same niche browser. I have the ability to make the browser look like Gecko or Firefox as well as its native rendering engine Goanna. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goanna_(software)

FYI I see a different display of PC than either of the pictures.

[Jools]

I think it is all browser/device related. I use a little known niche browser which is more protective of privacy than the big boys.

I guess for me I'd have to balance the risk of malware insertion, creepy bugs versus privacy. That said, what are the privacy concerns you mean - just asking as I am curious.

Cheers,

Jools

[TwoTankAmin]

I consider cillecting any information about me beyond the minimum needed to be an invasion of privacy.

I hate advertising. I have been watching TV since well before many here were born. I always change the channel when the ads come on and watch something else. I can actually follow several shows at one time. I do leave some ads om to rum to the bathroom or to grab a snack from the kitchen.

I consider my computer to by my private property just like my home. I do not allow strangers to wander in and out and look in drawers and closets etc. And I feel the same way about my computer.

I do not leave digital tracks out there as best I can prevent that.

I do not store any history nor any cookies. I do not store passwords. I use a paid email provider who stores my email encrypted and who cannot read them. The same for my pictures (not encrypted).

I do not do tabbed browsing. One window per site. When a browser window is closed session cookies are gone, super cookies are gone, the cache is cleared as well.

I own only one device and I do not use the cloud which is essentially somebody else's computer (albeit a very huge one).

Jools- you know who I am in real life and you know my screen name. See what you can find about me out on the net under both names.

Here is what I do know. I got my first PC, a 386 which ran DOS in the late 1980s. My first windows was 3.0. Over the years I have never been hacked and almost never removed anything malicious from my box. Software did snag a few mostly harmless trojans in the past 20 years, but nothing serious. This is mostly because I know that the most important defense against being attacked is how you behave online.

To that end, I am not registered on any social media, and I have used ad blockers for a long time. Until they made it useless, I used Ghostery to block almost everything.

I get almost 0 spam in my inbox. I get 0 targeted advertising, all I ever see is generic. Of course I do get a bit of spam from sites on which I am registered- bank, brokerage, mortgage company. But I rend to block sites that get too nosey and the same for emails.

There is one drawback to the browser I use, some sites do not like that I reject their crap and they do not work. So I find another one which does. Verizon is my ISP and I cannot log on there with the browser settings I have. So I call them instead.

[Jools]

Thanks Chris, that's great, thanks - was just interested in the background.

Jools